me and cries out, " Here we are! All together,
guv'nor!"

So, onward with the stream, catching occasional
glimpses of Hebrew inscriptions against
the walls, endless repetitions of a handbill issued
by the Jewish Society for the Diffusion of
Knowledge, and announcing a Sabbath lecture
by Brother Abrahams over Brother Lazarus
recently deceased, noticing here and there huge
rolls of edible stuff hung up called "swoss,"
which is apparently divided by the thinnest line
of religious demarcation from sausage-meat; onward
amidst constant cries of " Pockets, pockets,
take care of your pockets!" and occasional
rushes, evidently for pocket-picking purposes,
until we make our way to where the crowd
becomes even denser, and our progress is slower
and harder to fight for, until at last, down
a very greasy step, we make our entrance
into the Clothes Exchange. This is a roofed
building, filled round every side and in the
centre with old clothes stalls; and here, piled
up in wondrous confusion, lie hats, coats, boots,
hobnailed shoes, satin ball-shoes, driving-coats,
satin dresses, hoops, brocaded gowns, flannel
jackets, fans, shirts, stockings with clocks,
stockings with torn and darned feet, feathers,
parasols, black silk mantles, blue kid
boots, Belcher neckerchiefs, and lace ruffles.
This is to what my lady's wardrobe comes,
Horatio; this is the anti-penultimate of flounce
and furbelow, of insertion-tucker and bishop-
sleeve. Mamselle Prudence has my lady's
leavings, and Abigail looks after her perquisites,
and thus the trappings of fashion come down to
Jewry, and are refreshed and retouched, sponged
and lacquered and refaced, and take their final
leave of life amid the fashionable purlieus of
Whitechapel, or the nautical homes of the
blessed at Shadwell. No lack of customers
here; stalwart roughs being jammed into tight
pea-jackets by jabbering salesmen, who call on the
passers-by to admire the fit. "Plue Vitney, ma
tear! Plue Vitney, and shticksh to him like his
shkin, don't it?" " Who could fit you if I can't!
"Trai a vethkit, then!"—this to me—"a
thplendid vethkit, covered all over with thilver
thripes!" While, after declining this gorgeous
garment, I find Oppenhardt in the clutches of
a lithe-fingered Dalilah, who is imploring him to
let her sell him " thutch a thirt!" Everywhere
the trade is brisk, and the sales progress through
an amount of fierce argument, verbal and
gesticulatory, which would be held fatal to business
anywhere else in London, but which is here accepted
as a part of the normal condition of commerce.

In and out of the rows of stalls we dived, Wells
in front, recognised occasionally, sometimes by
a tradesman seated in solemn dignity at his stall,
who insists on a friendly hand-shake. Sometimes
the inspectorial presence is acknowledged
by a sly nod or a wink, as much as to say, " No
uniform! Then you don't want to be much
noticed! How are you?" and sometimes by a
half-chaffing shout of " Vot, is it you, Thargeant!
now'th your time for a hover-coat!" We see
plenty of public-houses, all with Jewry signs, and
we suggest to Wells that, being half suffocated,
perhaps we ought to have "something" after
this protracted struggle and the swallowing of
this dust? But he says, " Not yet, sir;—in a
jewel-house!" and with that mysterious hint
proceed we to clear the way out of the Exchange.

In a jewel-house! As I ponder on the
words, my mind rushes away to the regalia in
the Tower and Colonel Blood's attempt thereon;
to Hunt and Roskell's shop, and the Queen of
Spain's jewels, which were in the old Exhibition
of '51; to the Palais Royal at Paris, and the
Zeil at Frankfort; to a queer street at Amsterdam,
where I once saw a marvellous collection
of jewellery; to a queer man whom I once met
in a coffee-shop, who told me he " travelled in
emeralds;" to Sindbad's Valley of Diamonds,
and——Wells breaks my reverie by touching
my arm; I follow him across a square, in the
centre of which are several knots of men in discussion;
opposite us stands the door of " The
Net of Lemons," apparently closed, but it yields
to Wells's touch; and, following him up a passage,
I find myself in a low-roofed square-built comfortable
room. Round three sides of it are ranged
tables, and on these tables are ranged large open
trays of jewellery. There they lie in clusters,
thick gold chains curled round and round like
snakes, long limp silver chains such as are worn
by respectable mechanics over black satin waist-
coats on Sundays, great carbuncle pins glowing
out of green velvet cases, diamond rings and pins,
and brooches and necklaces. Modest emeralds
in quaint old-fashioned gold settings, lovely pale
opals, big finger rings made up after the antique
with cut cornelian centre-pieces, long old-
fashioned earrings (I saw nothing in any of the
trays in modern settings), little heaps of loose
rubies, emeralds, and turquoises, set aside in
corners of the trays, big gold and silver cups
and goblets and trays and tazzas, here and there
a clumsy old épergne, finger-rings by the bushel,
pins by the gross, watches of all kinds, from
delicate gold Genevas down to the thick turnipy
silver "ticker" associated with one's school-
days, and shoals of watchworks without cases.
"They've melted down the cases," says Inspector
Wells to me in a fat whisper, " and can let the
works go very cheap." Such trade as is being
done is carried on in a very low tone; the
customers, nearly all of whom are smoking
cigars, bend over the trays and handle the goods
freely, sometimes moving with them in their
hands to another part of the room, to see them
in a better light, and the vendors making not the
least objection.

I thought I noticed a whisper run round
as we entered, but the sight of Wells was
sufficient, and no further notice was taken.
We were afterwards told, however, that a
stranger is generally unceremoniously walked
out, and informed that "it's a private room."
After a few moments we were introduced by
Inspector Wells to Mr. Marks, the landlord of
the house, who wore a pork-pie hat, and had a
diamond brooch in his shirt, and two or three